
|
NAVIGATING
CUSTOMS
new
travel stories by twelve writers <25
edited
by
Dana Bath &
Taien Ng-Chan
featuring
the Medicine Woman of Butaritari
&
A
Trestle Chapbook travel story by
Cleo Paskal
168
pages
ISBN
978-0-9733499-8-6
quality
paperback with flaps
Tendril
Anthology Series - book 3 |
These
young authors explore a wide range of travel and genre: from an autobiographical
tale about chasing news stories in Nicaragua, to short fiction about
a young woman who has run away from her home in Gimli, Manitoba, to
a long poem about Great Barrier Island in the South Pacific. Even
if we’ve been to the places described, we haven’t been
there as these writers have. We haven’t gone deaf in Guyana
in the same way, nor questioned visiting Ground Zero in the same way,
though our unease with ourselves there may be similar. And
even if we’ve been to Locon, France, we didn’t meet the
same people, though we might wish we had. The writing here is fresh,
unique, and takes us on journeys that are unlike any others. |

FEATURING
thirteen writers <25: Amy Attas,
Karishma Boroowa, Raffy
Boudjikanian, Stacey Bowman, christine
estima, Amy Klassen, Sarah-Jean
Krahn, Alex Leslie, Zarmina
Rafi, Fenn Stewart, Gillian
Sze, Talia Weisz. |
Editors:
Dana Bath & Taien
Ng-Chan 
|
Dana
Bath has published two collections of short stories—what
might have been rain (conundrum press) and Universal Recipients
(Arsenal Pulp)—and one novel, Plenty of Harm in God
(DC Books). She has won a number of literary awards. Bath
is originally from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and now teaches English
Language and Literature at Vanier College in Montréal. She
used to travel a lot, and one day will again. |
Taien
Ng-Chan has seen small parts of Australia, Canada,
China, India, Nepal, Northern Europe, and the United States but
her strangest and most recent journey was on a Dutch cruise ship
across the Atlantic Ocean. She is author of Maps
of Our Bodies; anthology editor of Ribsauce; reviews editor
at Matrix Magazine. Her projects can be viewed here.
|
A Trestle Chapbook : The
Medicine Woman of Butaritari
The
tendril anthology series places the apprenticeship of new young
writers—24 years and under—on page one of Cumulus’
publishing program. The anthology series—whose innovative
book design includes a distinct but inseparable trestle chapbook
by award-winning author Cleo Paskal—embodies its raison d’être:
to provide a device for the mentorship of emerging writers. Cleo
Paskal’s travel story is set aside within the French flap
of the front cover in a format commonly used by the novice writer.
The series attempts to eliminate the distinction between emergence
and establishment because the latter is not possible without the
former.
|
by
Cleo Paskal
Cleo
Paskal’s varied print, radio, television and
film assignments have taken her from Timbuktu to the Largest Ball
of Twine in Minnesota. In the past six years, Paskal has won fourteen
major writing awards, including Grand Prize (best entry overall)
from the North American Travel Journalist’s Association (twice). |
|
|
|
If
Amy Miriam Sturton Attas
wasn’t such a laid-back baby, she would have been named Anna.
Instead, she was best friends with her. Amy considers the tiny wilderness
town of Pinawa, Manitoba, her home, but she’s currently studying
English and Creative Writing at York University in the endless concrete
of Toronto. She has traveled Canada coast to coast and seen Greece,
Costa Rica, Kenya, England (for eight hours, between flights), Germany
and Nicaragua. She dreams of biking from Alaska to Chile on the Pan-American
highway and sauntering to the North Pole with nothing but a pair of
snowshoes and a pen. She’s planted over 100,000 trees, played
over one hundred University hockey games, torn one ACL and lost her
passport twice.
|
Karishma
Boroowa
is a second-year Political Science student at the University of
Ottawa. She began writing fiction in English in Grade Nine, encouraged
by her mother Archana Medhi and also by her teacher, Ms. Anahita
Lee. Karishma is multilingual, and loves art, travelling, fencing,
thinking, and eating Tandoori prawns.
|
|
|
Raffy
Boudjikanian is a finishing journalism and political
science student at Concordia University. He has grown up in Canada
though he is of Armenian descent from Lebanon. He hopes to build a
successful career in journalism and long-form fiction and non-fiction
writing. He lives in Montréal with his family. Raffy enjoys
traveling and has seen much of Western Europe and Armenia. Last summer
he combined his love for trips with his journalistic curiosity for
a stay in Nicaragua. Catching Waves is the story of how he
almost never returned.
|
Stacey
Bowman is a novice traveller, a life-long writer
and currently an editorial assistant at Corporate Knights magazine
in Toronto. She will begin pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at
the University of Guelph-Humber in September, 2007.
|
|
|
christine
estima is a playwright, novelist, actress, and arts
journalist sleeping in some forgotten corner of a European railway
station. Her writing has appeared in The Malahat Review, The Encyclopedia
of Modern Drama, Matrix Magazine, TheGate.ca, NOW Magazine. Her
short story “Nylon-Encased Flesh” was included in the
literary anthology ToK: Writing the New Toronto (2006). Playwrighting
credits include, "Vignettes In The Dark" (2004, Toronto
Fringe Festival) and "The Spadina Monologues" (2005, The
New Ideas Festival, Alumnae Theatre; Theatre Passe Muraille backspace).
christine holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University.
Having traveled across the Middle East, Europe, christine is now living
in the UK, but you’ll still find her, most likely, in the fridge
at 4 am. |
Amy
Klassen grew up in various cities within British
Columbia, Canada. During the summer after her high-school graduation
she volunteered in Guyana, South America, with Youth Challenge International. Amy
now attends Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, double majoring in English and
Human Rights.
|
|
|
Sarah-Jean
Krahn is currently finishing a Bachelor’s degree
in Honours English at the University of Calgary. Next year, she will
be heading to McMaster to do a Master’s in Cultural Studies
and Critical Theory. She hopes to continue pursuing revisions to post-colonial
theory and expansions to the definition of a text. Creative non-fiction
is one awesome arena for these things to be done. She thanks to Clara
Joseph for helping her get this far. [Splendid]…[!]”
|
Alex
Leslie has worked as a journalist, including a stint
as National Features Bureau Chief for Canadian University Press.
She will begin her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC in the fall, focusing
on short fiction. Her travels have taken her to Spain and Morocco,
all over coastal BC, and recently to St. Petersburg, Russia, to
participate in writing workshops with the Summer Literary Seminars
program.
|
|
|
Zarmina
Rafi is a graduate student at Concordia University,
Montréal. She is currently at work on a collection of short
stories.
|
Born
in 1985, Fenn Elan Stewart
writes where she lives—with Pearl and often Anton, upstairs,
in a small house and a fine chaos in Vancouver, British Columbia.
|
|
|
Gillian
Sze
was raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has been published in The University
of Winnipeg Creative Writing Journal, Juice, as well as Concordia’s
Headlight Anthology. In 2004, she received the University
of Winnipeg Writers’ Circle Prize. Her first chapbook, This
is the Colour I Love You Best, was published by Withwords Press
in 2007. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Creative
Writing and resides in Montréal.
|
Born
and raised in Montréal, Talia
Weisz is wrapping up her B.A. double major in Creative
Writing and Anthropology at Concordia University. Her hobbies include
singing in the shower, eating toast with almond butter, and fiddling
with words. She is deeply grateful to her family for their support,
encouragement, and love.
|
|
|